Shadowdark Shadowdark General Thread [+]

[EthanSental]

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[Keldryn]

I'm thinking of running this soon...

Did you play theater of the mind, maps & miniatures, VTT, or something else? I just ordered two Chessex Megamats and going to draw out the entire dungeon. Also ordered a couple dozen black, silk handkerchiefs to cover it with to create a fog-of-war effect. First time trying to run a large dungeon like this, hope it works out!

Ultimately, I mostly ran that dungeon TotM (and continue to run Shadowdark that way). I'll typically sketch out the rooms on the player's map as they explore (it's too tedious to narrate room dimensions and all the back and forth involved in that).

I initially started with drawing the map on a Chessex mat and letting the players draw their own map based on that. Originally, I was planning to use 3D terrain.

I have hundreds of 3D printed dungeon tiles (Fat Dragon Games), but it's so difficult to replicate existing maps with them, particularly when a dungeon map has multiple "loops" that need to line up correctly. Many sessions in, and I still haves used them in my Shadowdark game. Players can cover a lot of ground in the dungeon quickly, which requires a lot of pre-built sections (as it's way too time consuming to build with individual tiles during play). Even with hundred of tiles already printed, I'll run out before building even a third of the dungeon.

One thing I found with using the battle mat is that the maps in the Cursed Scrolls 'zines and in Scarlett Minotaur feel really cramped when you draw them out on 5' squares and actually start putting minis down. And this applies to many old-school adventures. I've been running Shadowdark as an open-table Western Marches sort of game, so I've had anywhere from 2 to 9 players in a single session. The maps have a lot of 5' wide hallways and 20' rooms, and the believability really falls apart when you make a physical representation of that and shove 6+ PC minis into it (not to mention any monsters).

Taking a cue from video game design, you really need to build the physical layout to support the gameplay if you're going to use a physical representation of the environment on the table. As opposed to drawing a map based on what makes sense or based on realistic proportions, and then trying to create a battle map from that. This approach worked really well for me when using the 3D tiles in a 5e game that I was running previously.

Shadowdark movement and positioning is all pretty abstract, and combats move pretty quickly. Overall, I prefer how the game runs as theatre of the mind, as the focus on the game is on exploration and not set piece battles.

 

[Reynard]

Shadowdark movement and positioning is all pretty abstract, and combats move pretty quickly. Overall, I prefer how the game runs as theatre of the mind, as the focus on the game is on exploration and not set piece battles.

I tend to run it TotM until a big combat, then break out the TacTiles.

I also leave mapping to the players. If they don't care, neither do I, but if you gotta run...

 

[Fenris-77]

Well, it can be more whimsical. You probably want to keep your thumb on the scale and prevent it from going full body horror, which the later randomized depths of the garden tend to do. It and the Stygian Library ("It's based on the library from Discworld! How dark can it be?") both eventually get pretty bleak, if players keep going further and further into the weirdness.

The bonus for short-form games is that you're unlikely to get that deep.

 

[Jahydin]

@Keldryn
Thanks so much for the in depth write-up, especially since I use Wizkids miniatures.

I've been kicking around the idea of using one 1" Chessex mat at a 10' scale, using one miniature for the party as they move around the dungeon, then another 1.5" mat at 5' scale for combats where we bring in all the minis.

I initially started with drawing the map on a Chessex mat and letting the players draw their own map based on that. Originally, I was planning to use 3D terrain.

Can you elaborate on this a bit? Did you start with just a few starting rooms then let them fill the rest in or like a rough outline that they then had to draw in the details.

Still looking for that perfect mapping solution myself when doing TotM. I think my favorite method was printing out a "player's version" of the map (no secret doors, etc.), cutting it up by area, then handing them out as to glue-stick onto a blank surface. Nice balance of speeding the game along while also making someone feel like their "drawing" the map.

 

[SlyFlourish]

@Whizbang Dustyboots can correct me if I am wrong, but the question wasn't really about a introductory product so much as a COMPLETE product. The Dragonbane box core is a beautiful iteration of this, with rules as well as a whole campaign, plus some extra goodies. It certainly would not hurt Shadowdark to follow suit, even if they have been very successful so far as is.

I think the Shadowdark Quick Start is complete. Shadowdark isn't a game with color maps and miniatures and all that jazz. Sure, dice, maybe. But beyond that, I think it has all you need beyond some index cards maybe.

 

[Retros_x]

Taking a cue from video game design, you really need to build the physical layout to support the gameplay if you're going to use a physical representation of the environment on the table. As opposed to drawing a map based on what makes sense or based on realistic proportions, and then trying to create a battle map from that. This approach worked really well for me when using the 3D tiles in a 5e game that I was running previously.

Can you expand on that or maybe describe an example? I do not precisely understand the difference you desribe here between drawing a make based on what makes sense vs what supports gameplay. Because the old school maps you describe they DONT make sense, at least thats how I understand you, because that is my main criticsm too. A lot of these maps are so small and cramped, the whole dungeon should be alerted on first combat. So they seem to be "gamified" instead of realistic, but you criticize them but than say in the paragraph that you prefer "gamified" maps over "realistic" maps - hence my confusion. I probably misunderstood your point!

I personally never show a full map or draw it for the players and this is one of the reasons - they realize how crammed and close everything is. But when I only describe long hallways they immediately imagine everything larger and more spatial complex and expansive than it really is. I only draw a rough abstract map of a room or a cluster of rooms when the combat demands it.

 

[Bill Zebub]

FWIW, when I use maps in Shadowdark it's because a well-drawn map is evocative, and just to help everybody keep track of things. And we'll use minis/tokens to get a general sense of what rooms people are in, but we don't actually use the grid for anything. Combat is 90% TotM (e.g., when adversaries die, or join the fray, I'll subtract/add them to the map, but we don't really pay attention to position.)

 

[el-remmen]

As someone who prefers adapting TSR era modules (including 1E and 2E era Dungeon mag) for all editions of D&D and eventually for Shadowdark (which I own, but haven't played/run yet), this thread convinced me to check out the Necrotic Gnome adventures. Thanks!